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Emmet wears high-collared shirts now.
Ingo has noticed this since returning. He was always meticulous with his dress – they both were – but now Emmet is downright fastidious with his collar and tie, fussing over it in the mornings and after battles.
It is a strange feeling, to know that Emmet has new habits that Ingo does not know about. Before, he’d known him inside-out: quick to defend him from any unpleasant remarks and curious stares, and vice versa. But, well, Ingo has changed too, the least of which are his dressing habits. They’d had their fair share of awkwardness when slotting back together, when Emmet would expect something else – something Ingo wasn’t, anymore.
But at the end of the day, that doesn’t matter, because they are together now, and each other is more important than any amount of lost memories or disagreements or worn-down puzzle pieces. They can talk. They will understand.
And so Ingo has not pushed.
He doesn’t push, either, when he notices Emmet wears turtlenecks at home and under his uniform, even though he knows the copious amounts of train-themed shirts still sitting dusty in his closet. Even the high-collared shirts must be custom-made; stores don’t sell collars that high. Ingo recognizes the brand on the tag from his experience with Elesa’s modeling. It must have been very expensive. He wonders where all of Emmet’s old button-ups went.
Emmet turns away when he mentions it, though, and his sentences grow even shorter. He doesn’t come out of his room until he is fully dressed, the knot of his tie perfectly secure, even though Ingo distinctly remembers many a day where Emmet stumbled out of his room half-dressed and Ingo had to fix his collar.
It is a small matter. Unimportant. Ingo is only thinking about it because Emmet has passed out on the couch while he was heating up some food, and it doesn’t seem like he’ll be waking up anytime soon – he’d stayed up all night finishing overdue paperwork yesterday – and Ingo can’t just leave him there overnight in his uniform.
He frowns and sets down the plates he’d been holding. “Chandelure, a hand, please,” he says, and she obliges, gently raising Emmet’s form with her telekinesis. Ingo watches as he floats all the way to his bedroom and lands on his bed, not stirring. He must really have been exhausted.
Ingo stands over the bed and hesitates. He knows Emmet hates sleeping in his uniform, complains about the grimy feeling he wakes up to – but he doesn’t know if undressing him would be a step too far now. Before, there wouldn’t have been questions asked; they’ve never had the best sleep schedules, and often there would be one to help the other into bed, keep him from sleeping on the floor.
He knows the feeling too, waking to a sweaty collar and wrinkled shirt, and though he’d gotten used to it living in the Highlands, Emmet hasn’t. So he undoes the tie, lifting Emmet’s head to loop it out, and starts to unbutton the collar when he –
Stops.
There is an angry red scar near the base of Emmet's neck, curving slightly upwards toward the back and fading at the nape, slightly uneven.
Ingo stares at it. It sticks out against the pale skin, a reddish-brown; not unlike the brown of the stripes on their coats, he thinks distantly. He doesn’t realize he’s touching it until he hears a grumble and looks up to see Emmet’s eyes, opening blearily.
“Ingo? What–” Emmet starts, and then lurches back so fast Ingo nearly falls.
They stare at each other, silence stretching, until Ingo breaks it. “Emmet. I–”
“No,” Emmet says. “No, no, no, no.” He’s muttering something, almost unintelligible, and then he’s moving so quick that Ingo only registers that he’s gone when the door slams.
“Wait,” Ingo says, and then louder, “Wait, Emmet!” By the time he reaches the front door, it’s open and left swinging, and Emmet is nowhere to be seen.
Shit. Ingo stands in the doorway, panting. He fucked up. He obviously wasn’t supposed to – he shouldn’t have seen – He needs to find Emmet. Now.
He starts running through the neighborhood, shouting Emmet's name. Usually, he tries to tone his volume down in public, but this is an exception, no matter how many looks he gets. He looks frantically between the evening crowds on the streets for a hint of white, but it’s never the right one.
There’s a heartbeat pounding in his ears, and he has to stoop over to catch his breath, gasping, as he looks up to see Elesa’s apartment. The sky is completely dark. He swallows and thanks his feet for taking him here by habit. There’s a good chance that Emmet came here. He doesn’t think about the alternatives.
He finds his way to her door and knocks. Rapid footsteps approach, and then the door opens to Elesa, whose expression goes from cheerful to confused when she sees his state. “Ingo? Where’s Emmet?”
Ingo’s heart sinks. “I-I don’t know.”
Elesa’s arm drops and she’s silent for a moment. Abruptly, she turns away and says harshly, “No. I’m not doing this again.”
“What?” Ingo processes for a moment, and then jerks up. “No! No, he’s not gone, not – we just, I think I messed up, and he ran away and I can’t find him.”
“Oh.” The tension in her shoulders falls, and Ingo feels a wave of guilt; he didn’t mean to remind her, but it must’ve seemed that way, when he showed up at her door shaken and alone. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ll keep looking–”
“In your state? Don’t be ridiculous,” she says. “Sit down and we’ll make a plan, okay? We’ll find him.”
Her voice brooks no argument. He follows her in and sits down at the coffee table blankly, trying not to think about knotted scars over delicate skin. It can’t be what he’s thinking.
A mug of coffee is set in front of him and he takes it on instinct. Elesa sits next to him and smiles wryly. “I doubt we’re getting much sleep tonight anyways.”
He nods. She hesitates, and then starts: “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but…if you can, it might–”
“Elesa.” Ingo cups the mug, heat seeping into his hands, and swallows. “Did Emmet. Did he ever–”
His voice fails then, and he coughs. Elesa watches him carefully, and says, “Did he what?”
There’s a short silence. He can’t say it. “What happened to his neck?”
Elesa’s face drops. “Oh, Ingo.”
“What happened?”
“I…” She looks down, and then back. “I promised him I wouldn’t say anything about it.”
He grips the mug harder and she sighs. “But you clearly know by now, and it’s hurting you. So. Emmet tried to kill himself.”
“Ah.”
How strange, he thinks, that a set of words could be so simple and so vicious. He doesn’t realize he’s hyperventilating until a pair of hands cup his cheeks, and he looks up to Elesa’s worried face. “Ingo? Ingo, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have sprung it on you like that. Here, breathe with me, okay? C’mon, in and out.”
He breathes until his heart settles a bit, and then says, “Tell me more.”
“You sure?” He nods.
She exhales deeply. “It was during your disappearance. Two years in. He…” She shakes her head. “That’s all I should say. It’s not my place to – I’ve already – you’ll have to talk to him.”
“Alright.” He stands up. “Thank you, Elesa.”
“What? Hey, where are you going?”
“I know where he is,” Ingo says. She freezes from where she was moving to block him.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.” He looks down at his hands, bearing faint white scars over the knuckles from his time in Hisui. “Maybe I should give him time. But I know him. I need to talk to him. Tell him that he – he does not need to hide it, because I will always love him.”
Elesa looks sad for a moment, and then she holds her arms out for a hug, which Ingo meets gladly. She buries her head in his shoulder and says, “It was so, so hard when you were gone.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t say that.” She pushes him off gently. “Go find your brother.”
–
The door of the maintenance tunnel creaks as Ingo pushes it open, dusty with infrequent use. Chandelure lights the way for him as he walks the dim corridor. He shivers. This is familiar, painfully so: the view he had seen minutes before his unplanned departure.
He reaches the end and unlocks the door to the abandoned station. It is just as dark inside as the tunnel, but he hears a familiar warble and follows it. Sure enough, he sees Eelektross's neon yellow patterns in the corner, faintly glowing, and a man sitting on the floor cradling it.
"Emmet," Ingo says. Emmet doesn't make eye contact, but he also doesn't turn away, so Ingo takes that as a good sign. "May I sit down next to you?"
Emmet doesn't respond, so Ingo eases down a foot away. "I wanted to apologize. I overstepped your boundaries and completely derailed the train from its essential course." He clears his throat. "I also wanted to say that I would never think of you differently for–"
"You don't get to say that." The words are stilted and bitter. "You weren't there."
Ingo's jaw clicks shut. "I'm sorry," is what he eventually settles on. "Do you – do you need some time? I can leave–" But Emmet is shaking his head.
They sit there in silence for a bit, only Eelektross's outline lighting the vague shapes of Emmet's face. He has that expression that means he doesn't want to talk but is composing himself to do so anyways – a very frequent occurrence during their childhoods – and Ingo wants to say something, that he doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to, but he knows Emmet is stubborn. So he waits.
Emmet gestures to the space around them. "This station. Abandoned. You disappeared here."
"I remember."
"I came down here a lot. First to search. Then to wait. I waited a lot." Ingo's heart aches at the tone of his voice. He hasn't heard it as much in the past few months as things have been settling down.
"I…I could not fix it, Ingo. Everything I tried. Didn't matter. There was nothing. No trace. It got tiring to wait." An exhale. "I was so tired."
He pushes his hands over his face. "I was weak. I could not think, I was weak, I, I could not stop it, I was not strong enough–"
"No," Ingo says. "No, Emmet, that is not the case."
Emmet grabs jerkily at his collar, pulling it down. "You do not understand," he says. "Staring down at these tracks. There was nothing. Nothing. At all. I kept trying. I was not strong enough. You – You were strong. You were lost – you forgot everything – but you kept trying and you found your way back and I gave up."
He's panting by the end, fingers scrabbling, almost clawing, over the ring on his neck. Ingo had been frozen, but at that motion he instinctively grasps Emmet's wrists and pulls his hands away. He doesn't resist. "Emmet."
Ingo holds tight until Emmet's breaths slow a little. "Emmet. I…" He searches for something to say. "When I was stuck in Hisui, when I felt hopeless. I thought of you. I did not even remember your name, yet I remembered your determination. Your passion. Your resolve to reach victory. I would steel myself to be able to match the character of the partner in my memory, to keep going one more day and find my way home. I thought of you. You are not weak."
Emmet only looks worse. "Only with you, Ingo," he says. "Without you – nothing. A retired train. Scrap." He hunches in on himself further. "I did not want you to know. I wanted you to think I was strong. I had faith. Not–" He gestures at himself. "--this."
Usually Ingo has many words – too many, even. But his mind fails him now, and he can only watch and listen as more awful words spill out of Emmet's mouth, soft and almost tender, like a caress.
"The second year you were gone. The anniversary. I came down here and waited. I hoped something would happen. It did not. So I bought a rope and hung myself.
"Elesa found me quickly. I was not answering her calls. She broke in. Saved me before any brain damage."
Emmet's hand comes up to cup Ingo's cheek, and he realizes with a start that he is crying. Emmet does not stop, though. "They put me in a ward. Five days. I did not think at all for those five days. But at the end they released me and I was still alive. I was disappointed. I had lost my chance to find you. I kept living. I lived with it."
He has a strange sort of smile on his face, almost painful, a gruesome imitation of his usual expression. "But you came back. You came back, Ingo."
Ingo's throat is very dry. "I did," he manages.
"Everything could go back to normal. A new normal. Everything else is in the past. I thought: this belongs in the past. Covered. I could not show you. I thought–" Emmet cuts off, throat bobbing. "You do not deserve it."
The room is silent save for a tear falling from Ingo's chin to the floor. "Emmet," he says, voice steady. "I love you. That will never change. Even if you – attempted suicide. That is irreversible. I would do anything to go back in time, to be there for you, but I cannot. Regardless, my opinion of you will never change. I will always love you just the same."
Emmet is staring at him with wide eyes, and Ingo has a moment to wonder if he fucked up again before Emmet falls into him, frame heaving with big, silent sobs. He’s mumbling something, I’m sorry, over and over again. Ingo draws his arms around him and whispers random reassurances and holds him as tight as he can.
–
Ingo is stirring a pot of soup when he gets a text from Elesa: everything ok today? He sends a thumbs-up and then nearly loses his balance when Durant headbutts him in the shin.
“Alright, alright, I’ll get you your dinner,” Ingo says fondly. “You can’t even wait for me to make mine first?” As he’s doling out their shares, he can’t help but peek at the door of Emmet’s room, where he’d gone in straight after work and remained, and feels a tinge of worry.
Ingo thinks Emmet’s okay. He seemed fine at work all day, but then he’s also quite good at masking by necessity. He considers checking in, but – no, Emmet needs some space after that trainwreck yesterday. He returns to the soup. That’s another thing that’s changed; Ingo can actually cook now. Only simple things, but certainly much more edible than anything he could’ve produced five years ago.
He’s smiling at the memories of burnt pots when he hears the sound of a door opening and turns around. “Emmet! Are you–”
Then he stops. Emmet is wearing a T-shirt, one that makes memories race to the front of his mind: a hot summer day, a convention; Emmet, baby-faced in his teens, pointing out a stand of overpriced shirts with train puns to Elesa and grinning. Emmet, laughing as they picked out the worst of the lot and groaning as Elesa delivered the puns with a straight face.
This Emmet is older, with more lines on his face and a scar on his bare neck, looking uneasily away as Ingo stares.
“Your soup is burning,” Emmet says. Ingo jumps.
He turns the heat down and says, “Keep calm and carriage on? Really?”
A grin cracks through Emmet’s face, a real one that reaches his eyes. “If you recall, brother, you picked this one out.”
“Did I? Unfortunate.”
There's a comfortable silence as Emmet goes through the usual routine of stopping Haxorus from stealing Exadrill's food.
Then Ingo remembers something. "Wait, I have an idea. You set the table," Ingo says, ignoring Emmet's call of "You? An idea? Impossible!" as he goes to his room.
Elesa had bought him enough for an entirely new wardrobe when he returned, and as someone who used to wear ten identical button-ups on rotation, that leaves him with many stacks of clothes to sort through. He sneezes at the cloud of dust and pulls out a black shirt, printed with the words Trains: A Marvel of Engine-uity. It’s a little tight to get around the shoulders; he’s gained a bit of mass since then courtesy of space-time travel, but he manages.
"Actually, that one is worse," Emmet says as Ingo returns. Then, "You remembered."
"Of course I did. I have a one-track mind .”
Emmet groans and says “That doesn’t even make sense,” but he’s also laughing, so Ingo counts it as a win.
The clink of plates and silverware. The taste of the soup reminds Ingo of cozy nights with Lady Sneasler, huddled next to the fire away from the cold cave entrance, and strangely the memory doesn’t make him melancholy, like it sometimes does; instead he just feels a sense of warmth that now he can have the same recipe with his brother and the rest of their family, hundreds of years in the future in a steel structure far above the ground. Offhandedly Emmet says, "I don't know if I'll ever be able to wear these outside again."
Ingo lifts the ladle to his lips for a taste. "That's fine. Routes change; cars are refurbished. The train can keep moving."
"It will," Emmet says, soft but firm. He's wearing a small smile, a real one.